TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK pay tribute to US Progressive / Power Metal heroes HEIR APPARENT: Featuring BEAST IN BLACK SINGER Yannis Papadopoulos. FORGOTTEN SCROLL premieres exclusively the video of this new song cover. In the wake of HEIR APPARENT‘s highly praised comeback last year with ”The View From Below”, The Norwegian Metallers TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK have released a video where they pay homage to the band with a cover of “Crossing The Border” of the “One Small Voice” album. The tribute includes studio footage of BEAST IN BLACK singer Yannis Papadopoulos, mixed with live HEIR APPARENT footage from ”The Riviera” club 1988 and ”Up The Hammers” festival 2016: The old nostalgic era meets the new and coming era featuring the extraordinary talent of singer Will Shaw.

The band says: “30 years ago Seattle’s HEIR APPARENT released their second opus, “One Small Voice”. The album, which is heavily influenced by the early works of QUEENSRŸCHE and CRIMSON GLORY, is perceived as one of the best and among the most important Progressive Power Metal albums of all times. In the wake of HEIR APPARENT‘s critically acclaimed comeback last year with ”The View From Below”, we decided now would be the perfect occasion to release the cover we recorded back in 2015 with BEAST IN BLACK singer Yannis Papadopoulos. The track was mixed and mastered by Jim Morris at Morrisound Recording Studios (CRIMSON GLORY, SAVATAGE, ICED EARTH, DEATH).”

To make this premiere a little more interesting Chris Papadakis tracked down the band for a mini interview accompanying the video. Here it is:

LETHAL’s “Immune” some weeks ago and HEIR APPARENT’s “Crossing The Border”. Are you trying to tell us something?

HEIR APPARENT and LETHAL are names which speak for themselves. Two rock solid but underappreciated bands, both of which could have succeeded the far more acknowledged Queensrÿche.

Both of these covers were recorded during 2015. We knew both bands were working on new releases, and have been waiting for the right time to release the covers. When German magazine Powermetal.de contacted us, wanting to include the LETHAL cover on their upcoming sampler, “Metalliance Vol.3”, we figured the time had come for both tracks to escape our vaults.

I really enjoyed all those TOMMOROW’S OUTLOOK covers uploaded lately. Are they just tributes to your heroes or hints for future co-operation with specific musicians on your forthcoming third album? And I am asking this because in the past we have tracked down TO covering an ARIA’s classic “Slave To The evil Force” and now an ARIA member is participating to the forthcoming album, right?

Our covers are first and foremost tributes to some of the bands and artists who inspire us, and who we love. But for the last four covers we did – LETHAL, HEIR APPARENT, ARIA and BRUCE DICKINSON – we’ve had a larger vision for them. We probably won’t ever again do a cover just for the hell of it. For LETHAL and HEIR APPARENT, we’re talking about two criminally underrated bands who both deserve much more attention. We might not be able to provide that attention, but we’re gonna give it a bloody good shot. BRUCE DICKINSON we did because we can. We have one of very few singers able to do Bruce’s vocals justice, and particularly for a song like “Darkside of Aquarius”. We also wanted to show some respect to our producer, Roy Z, who has done more for heavy metal than most people realize.

The ARIA classic “Slave to the Evil Force” is no ordinary cover either. We do think the Russian language is part of what makes ARIA exotic and unique, but through our English translation, we hope to help them extend their reach beyond the borders of Russia.

Yes, we have been able to get Maxim Udalov from ARIA to perform the drums for our next album, “Black Waves”. We also invited Vitaly Dubinin to maybe do some bass.

We have already cooperated with Terry Gorle of HEIR APPARENT and Dell Hull of LETHAL, and as of now, we have no plans of getting any more guests for the next album. We do have a desire to be more of a band and not depend on too many guest musicians.

Why you have chosen this very specific HEIR APPARENT song?

We had a list of our very favorites, and simply voted on which we would most like to perform.

What was your overall experience to co-operate with Yannis Papadopoulos?

Yannis is a good guy. Very professional, and his voice is fantastic. He recorded his vocals for “Crossing the Border” in his home studio back in 2015 and did a video later. He may have lost faith it would never see the light of day, so this should be a positive surprise to him.

What does Terry think about this cover?

You’ll have to ask Terry. He’s a complete perfectionist, so we might have screwed up some details here and there which annoy him, hehe. We did our very best to do the song justice. Whether or not we did will be up to others to decide, but we’re very satisfied and hope Terry and the rest of the band appreciate it.

How about the next TO album, you recently posted the cover artwork, any more details? In what stage are you now as far the recordings etc?

As of now we don’t have too many details for you, but we do have the following:

The next album will be titled “Black Waves” and is centered on a small location in Northern Norway called Gressholman. We’ll tell stories about the rough conditions facing those who lived by the sea, and about the old trading post which burned in 1902. Also, we have a mini concept about the brutal killing of two saami lads in 1748, and the following trial and execution. So far we’ve written and recorded 8-9 demos, and feel like we’re about to land the writing process safely. Depending on the finances, we’ll see about recording it all properly.

All vocal duties for «Black Waves» will be handled by Tony Johannessen.

Maxim Udalov of ARIA will perform all drums for the album. Vitaly Dubinin will do some bass, but no worries: Andreas Stenseth is still doing most of it. We also continue to work with Roy Z.